Tanentzapf Lab

1. One of formative experience of grad school for me was when our lab moved across the hallway to a bigger space & I realised my research didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of science & that this actually made me love science even more. So here is a thread about that.

Over my career I learned that whenever there was a paper, or a technique, or a finding that I thought was totally wrong all I had to do was wait & it would go away. Alternatively, I found out I was the one w/ the wrong opinion. Whatever the case I learned that time is my friend.

My hot take is that I’m with good ol’ TH Morgan on this, biology is fundamentally simple. Over complicated explanations are just a sign of our ignorance.

Happy 105th birthday to Rosalind Franklin.

This a very important contribution & a valuable example of how to assess reproducibility in a scientific field. This sort of effort should take place in every scientific field of study.

It's Friday it's summer, let's have some fun. Drop in the comments the meanest things a reviewer has ever said to you (bonus if it's on a manuscript you think is good & that you ended up publishing in a different journal). I'll start with the masterpiece below.

Idea of the day: For every publication the first author prepares & records a 10-20 minute seminar talk about the work that gets posted on the journal website along with the manuscript.

Friends in Los Angels. I am giving a seminar in UCLA tomorrow (Friday May 30th) at 3:30 at Boyer 159. I will be speaking about how stem cells make good decisions when seemingly every signaling pathway in the world is present in their environment telling to do something different.

The turmoil impacting NIH funding is a reminder how important it is that ALL countries have robust & well resourced research funding bodies to support science. The world of science can't rely on the US & the NIH to continue playing such a major role in funding key scientific work

Of all the things I find baffling about American Science the weirdest is how university based researchers work year round but (if they are lucky) get paid by the institution for 9 months of the year. A bizarre, archaic, & abusive arrangement that has somehow been normalized.

I've been doing this for 30 years & I still can't believe that when people ask me what I do for a living I get to tell them "I'm a scientist". It feels like a kid's fantasy career that they dress up as for Halloween, like "astronaut" or "pirate". Feel very lucky I get to do this

Guess which PI is flying today to San Diego for the Drosophila Fly Meeting #Dros25 and forgot to book a hotel room (and just found out that the hotel is now fully booked). PI brain people, it's a real thing.

📢 Mar 17: CPS Special Seminar! Join us for the in-person presentation by Dr. Patrick Oakes, hosted by Dr. Guy Tanentzapf: "Strain Signaling: “How LIM domain proteins coordinate mechanotransductionat adhesions”" 📷 Mar 17, 1pm in LSC 3 & Zoom

Super proud of my former student Katie for this amazing and important new paper. (Also She’s on the job market! 😉)

This week has been comically busy, Ive been so under the cosh that I spent 10 minutes yesterday frantically searching the kitchen for the grater & turns out I randomly put it in the fridge in my absent mindedness. Please share your best "absent minded scientist" story in comments